Not Forgotten
by FanOfHan
Summary: Han Solo finds himself unaware of time but in great pain. He struggles to comprehend what has paralysed him and what is causing him so much pain.


There is blackness, only blackness; eternal night and never-ending nothingness. There is pain but no way to scream, no means to move.

_You don't need to breathe! It's just an illusion! You're not suffocating!_

But whose is this voice that is inaudible but understandable, inside not outside? How can it be trusted?

There is despair, and pain and endless, endless night.

But something else, a boom. Like thunder; felt, not heard – there is no way to hear it.

Confusion.

_Thunder? From where?_

And then a warmth and sudden panic.

_How can there be warmth?_

There is cold and only cold, cold that penetrates every fibre, right down to the blackness where the heart, the soul, once resided. But warmth?

_Is it Hell?_

And then the fear joins the confusion, joins the distress.

_Where in the galaxy..! What _is_ this place? _

Pain, intensifying with the warmth, still no way to scream.

Suffocating.

_No! Just an illusion; not suffocating! Only an illusion! _

Lungs aching, straining.

_But for no reason! Keep it together! You don't need to breathe!_

Close, consuming, icy darkness.

_Must get out! But out of where?_

Warmth, growing, consuming, enveloping, so much pain, so much cold, and blackness, so much blackness.

_What the hells is going on! Am I lying down or standing up?_

A low throbbing, a hum, the warmth still growing, pain, torture, burning, aching, agony like none before it, and for so long.

_Carbonite! I'm frozen in Carbonite!_

That warmth, a slow, steady, burning heat, drowning out the cold, but intensifying the pain. Why won't it end?

Heart beats faster.

_No! Must calm down or I'll suffocate. _

Heart beats faster still.

_Must breathe! Not an illusion anymore! Must breathe! _Gotta_ breathe!_

A soft, high whistling, patches of dry coolness on face and hands.

_Gotta…breathe…now!_

And then fingers bend, mouth can move, a welcome breath enters straining lungs, sweet, new oxygen.

Deafening noise, overpoweringly pungent stench, dry taste, liquid soaking everything; senses unused for so long now flooded with ability, overwhelmed with sensation.

But the rush of noise, the eternity of waiting, the endless night and unending pain, too much for the abused, weakened body.

Weakness, fatigue, dizziness; suddenly the body freed is falling, cannot support itself.

The world tips, vision is not needed to feel it, and the progress is stopped by a cold, hard, dusty floor.

Wants to move, but can't, to get up but is unable, and so there lies, air cooling sodden clothes and slicked wet hair as trembling begins.

But hands take hold, lift, turn, cradle in armoured arms, against and armoured chest.

The weakened body protests, bruises vaguely remembered under pressure, causing pain.

Hands held up in defence.

"Just relax for a moment," a harsh, metallic voice, a rasp, a grating growl. "You're free of the Carbonite!"

To see his saviour, he turns his head, but still sight eludes him, his sore eyes refusing to aid him, nausea threatening constantly.

"Shh. You have hibernation sickness."

"I can't see."

Rubbing his eyes to prove the point, to try and do some good, surprised at the shivering and the quavering of his own voice in his ears as he replies.

"Your eyesight will return in time," the voice rasps.

The hot air around him, growing warmer as the body returned to life, stifles now.

"Where am I?"

A hand to the aching chest.

"Jabba's Palace."

The rasp assaults his ears but the answer freezes his heart all over again.

_Jabba's Palace?_

_But if he'd wanted to kill you he wouldn't have wasted time tellin' you where you are._

With this in mind he languishes a moment in his saviour's arms.

But he is afraid and raises a hand. The voice, he reasons, is unfamiliar but perhaps due only to the Carbonite.

The face, maybe, he will recognise from touch.

A gasp.

Not flesh but hard metal, cold and unforgiving.

He almost dares not ask, but has to know.

"Who are you?"

Movement, small noise, both barely detectable, but both quiet agony to the aching body and throbbing head.

But more confusion.

A new scent, gentle, light, almost welcome, some unexplainable clam in his heart, and too long a pause.

"Someone who loves you."

Hopes, dreams, prayers, all are answered. Warmth returns, the hollow gape in the stomach is gone.

_I'm alive! She's here!_

"Leia!"


End file.
